


200 - Sleepy, Cuddly Van

by storiesaboutvan



Category: Catfish and the Bottlemen (Band)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Mini Fic, Reader-Insert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-12
Updated: 2019-01-12
Packaged: 2019-10-08 20:05:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17392838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storiesaboutvan/pseuds/storiesaboutvan
Summary: Filling the prompts “Cuddling sans clothes with Van. No smut though, just fluff and Van kissing bare shoulders and shoulder blades. Also maybe some angst, because reader is his childhood sweetheart and he’s been away so long so they haven’t seen each other in ages,” “I was thinking about sth with Well, you can’t get what you want but you can get me/So let’s set out to sea/Cause you are my medicine/When you’re close to me lyrics (Gorillaz). I guess I shoulda just said Van being sad and Reader comforting him,” and “one with a sleepy van because it’d be so cuuute”





	200 - Sleepy, Cuddly Van

Van's skin was a soft landscape of colours. The fairy lights wrapped around the wooden bed frame lit up his hair and shoulder blades in an orange glow. The moonlight shining in through the uncurtained window made the pale skin on his back look blue. The stained glass wind chime hanging above the window left small patches of pink and purple dancing across the bedspread and across Van. And, where the blanket had bunched up, a shadow was cast along the base of his spine. The dimples there darker than the rest of his perfect freckled skin.

You watched him sleep. He was exhausted when he finally returned from the longest tour he'd ever been on. He was a boy that belonged to the road, the whole world his home, but even so, he missed you enough that he cried when he crawled into his own bed with you for the first time in months and months and months. Van did what he always did when tired; he got upset about how everything was going to fall into place.

He whispered about the timing of babies and absent fathers. "I want it all, Y/N, and it's too much," he said with his eyes closed and body still. You traced invisible lines from freckle to freckle on his back. "I get sick when I think about it,"

"Van… You're so lucky. We're so lucky. You can't have every single thing you want. At least, not all at once," you whispered back. He nodded and opened his eyes. You watched them go watery and bloodshot.

"I don't think about it as much when I'm with you. I'm good when I'm with you,"

"That's 'cause I look after ya," you replied, kissing his forehead and pulling the blanket up around him.

Only asleep for a couple of hours, you'd woken at the sound of Mary scratching at the door. The wood had claw marks in it; if Van ever wanted to resell the house, he'd probably have to replace a lot of the doors and flooring. You doubted he'd ever want to leave though. The house was alive with the memories of your years together, and it already held hope of future children and future lives. 

You laid watching the pink and purple until an ambulance sped past, splashing bright blue across the room and waking Van with its swirling screaming siren. His eyebrows pulled together first, then slowly his eyes opened. He looked at you, then around the room. 

"Hey. Go back to sleep," you whispered, reaching out to brush his hair. His eyes closed. 

"Wha's that?" he asked, words slurred with sleep. 

"Just an ambulance. Sleep." 

You waited for his breathing to regulate again, then you covered him with the blanket and quietly left the room. 

Looking for Mary, you found her sitting on an old couch dragged outside during a party a year ago. It sat under the back veranda, and nobody ever bothered to return it to inside. Instead, a better couch was bought for the lounge, and the old one became outdoor furniture. 

"What are you doin' out here in the cold?" you asked Mary, picking her up and rocking her in your arms. The night was quiet, but you could still hear the ambulance close by. It must have stopped only a few streets over. Why were its sirens still on? 

You considered lighting a smoke, but you were trying to quit. You needed something though, so you padded through the house and raided the kitchen cupboards. Finding a chocolate bar, you sat on the bench and watched Mary follow an ant across the floorboards. 

"Baby?"

Van had appeared silently in the doorway. He was in underwear and the hoodie that was on the bedroom floor last time you saw it. He must have picked it up on the way through. Sleeves over his hands, he rubbed at his eyes and yawned wide. 

"Go back to bed," you said to him. He shook his head, his eyes only partly open, not used to the bright light of the kitchen. He walked and wrapped his arms around you.

Standing between your legs, he rested his head on your shoulder. 

"Why you up?" 

"Everything kept waking me. Can't sleep. Why are you up?" you asked him. 

"I need you," he mumbled into your t-shirt, his t-shirt. 

"Alright. Come on then." 

You slid off the counter and pushed Van back through the house. Mary followed along and took her place in her little dog bed on your bedroom floor. Back under the covers, you and Van laid on your sides facing each other. 

"You're like... medicine or something," he whispered. The fairy lights were above his head, causing thin, long shadows of eyelashes to fan out across his cheeks. The points of the shadows touched some of his freckles; they were all trying their best to reach out for them. "Don't matter how worried I get 'bout things, or anythin' like that, you make it all better," 

"But I don't do anything..." 

"You exist, you know? You're here and that's all I need." He spoke slowly, still not fully awake and starting to fall asleep again. Van was a person of candour all the time, but when he was like that his ability to think before he spoke and his ability to censor himself was lost. It meant that anything uttered in the darkness of the bedroom was pure honesty, as judged by Van. You existed. It was all he needed. An unshakable truth about the world. 

Van shuffled closer to you after pulling his hoodie off. His fingers ran lines down your arm. You leant in and kissed the point of his collarbone where it stuck out from his body. Nuzzling into him, you felt him sigh softly. 

"I love you," you whispered.

"I love you too." 

You kissed lazy, unaligned lips and not enough pressure. He grazed his nose along yours and kissed you again. You pushed your body into his and snaked your arms up around his neck, pulling him into you. Bodies pressed together as close as physically possible, you could feel your heart beating in your chest, or maybe it was his against yours. Van's hand slid around your side and up the centre of your back. The bony vertebrae under your skin were road bumps, and his hands dipped over and between them.

The proximity between your face and Van's meant that you couldn't see him properly. Still, even in the barely-there moon and fairy light, you could see small details. A few red dots, healing pimples that you had loved. A tiny scar on the side of his nose that he got when a stray piece of broken glass flew across the stage in the early days. You could see rheum in the corner of his eyes. Van called it sleep dust, because his parents had. You reached up and carefully wiped it away with a fingernail. A small smile formed on his lips. 

"Is it weird that we do that?" he whispered, referring to your cleaning of each other, something you constantly did. You shrugged. Another ambulance went past, the flashing blue the only indicator. The siren was off, which you interpreted as a good thing. "Was that..." Van asked. The deep dark red behind his eyelids had momentarily sparked blue. 

"Yeah. 'Nother ambulance. Hope everyone is alright,"

"Are you?" Van mumbled, somehow managing to hold you tighter. 

"Yeah. You?" 

"Yeah, love. Yeah, I am."


End file.
